Prominent Yes supporter Peter FitzSimons highlights a column declaring if Australia votes No it might be ‘our greatest day of national shame’

Prominent columnist and author Peter FitzSimons has highlighted that if the Indigenous Voice to Parliament fails it will be Australia’s ‘biggest day of shame’.

FitzSimons made the comment while tweeting an opinion column with the same headline from lawyer and investment banker Duncan Murray, arguing that the No campaign has taken advantage of ‘an unfair dog whistle’.

Mr Murray said ‘damage’ was being caused by No campaigners’ insistence that ‘the Voice proposal would introduce a racial divide into the constitution’, causing people to object to being welcomed into their ‘own bloody country’.

He labeled such feelings as ‘rabies at the margins’.

“Given all we have done for First Nations Peoples for more than 200 years, this is a humble and kind request,” Mr. Murray wrote on the Voice.

“If we say no, it may be our day of greatest national shame.”

FitzSimons, a former Wallaby who lives on Sydney’s north shore and is married to TV star Lisa Wilkinson, is one of Australia’s best-known authors and columnists. He was also the former head of Australia’s republican movement and a committed advocate of enshrining an Indigenous voice in Parliament in the Constitution.

FitzSimons, who has posted “#Yes” to his Twitter profile, stated that he is “a big supporter of the Voice” during an interview with his “friend” and left-wing Yes advocate Thomas Mayo in April.

The tone of his interview was very different from the combative one he conducted with Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price for the Sun Herald in Sydney in August 2022.

Mr. Mayo’s interview ended in a joke about not threatening FitzSimons’ “entrenched white privilege,” while Senator Price’s interview ended with a brief “thank you.”

Senator Price said the August 2022 interview with the columnist started well, but Fitzsimmons became “aggressive… condescending and rude” to her.

She said it was “like talking to a brick wall” and that she felt “insulted.”

“I’m not a withering violet, but he’s a very aggressive guy, his interview style is very aggressive, he doesn’t need to take action,” she said.

“By accusing me of somehow giving power to racists because the issues I raise are confrontational – he completely loses the point.”

FitzSimons made the comment while tweeting an article advocating for businessman Duncan Murray’s Voice

FitzSimons denied Senator Price’s characterization of how the interview went, saying her claims were “complete and utter nonsense.”

The interview was a “professional exchange,” he said.

During the interview with Senator Price, FitzSimons disputed her claim that the Voice would drive a wedge between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, which was not the case.

“As a progressive mood sweeps the country, we are now far more united than at any time in our history, and the most prominent wedge, I respectfully suggest, Senator, is people like you and your supporters?,” FitzSimons said. .

‘I don’t accept that. How can the inclusion of a race-based bureaucracy in the Constitution not drive a wedge?” Senator Price responded.

“That spreads racial stereotypes that Indigenous Australians are a homogenous separate entity, and we are not.”

FitzSimons also asked Senator Price whether, “during the silent watch of the night,” she ever “thought that in the seriously prominent and powerful position that you have, you are abusing the platform that you have and actually harming Indigenous causes?”

FitzSimons and leading No lawyer Jacinta Price had a combative interview in August last year

Senator Price responded that she had “no doubt whatsoever” about what she was “trying to achieve” and the truth she was “trying to reveal.”

The referendum to constitutionally recognize Indigenous Australians in the Constitution through the creation of the Voice will take place on October 14.

Polls published so far show that the referendum is likely to fail.